DETER Confirms Deforestation in the Amazon Region

Hello reader!

It follows one communicates published in english on the day (15/07) in the website of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) announcing that the DETER System indicates 109,6 km2 of desmatamentos in the Amazon region in May.

Duda Falcão

DETER Confirms 109.6 km2 of

Deforestation in the Amazon in May

July 15, 2010

DETER - Deforestation Detection in Real Time is a very important tool to give support to the Amazonian monitoring, from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), reveals that in May, 109.6 km2 of native Forest suffered shallow cut or environmental progressive degradation.

In May, when 45% of the Legal Amazonia was covered by clouds forbidding the satellite observation, deforestation has been found in 4 states.

Mato Grosso = 51.5 km2

Pará = 37.2 km2

Rondônia = 10.7 km2

Amazonas = 9.8 km2

Total = 109.6 km2

Find in the map beneath the localization of the warnings, (in yellow dots) emitted by DETER. In pink the areas that were not monitored in May due to the clouds coverage.

Due to the variable clouds coverage from one month to another and also, for the satellite resolution, DETER’s data do not represent a faithful assessment of the Amazon monthly deforestation. By the same reason INPE do not recommend the comparison among data of different months and years.

At every publishing on this warning system INPE presents also a data representative evaluation report.

Check here the evaluation report from May 2010

DETER System

Since 2004 DETER (Deforestation Detection in Real Time) has been in operation and it is a warning system to give support to the surveillance and monitoring of the forestall deforestation.

Although the data have been published in monthly or bimonthly reports, DETER’s results have been sent at every fortnight to IBAMA, responsible for the watchfulness of the areas under alert.

The system points such shallow cut areas when the satellites detect the complete uncovering of the native Forest, as areas classified as progressive degradation, that reveal the process of deforestation in the area.

As DETER uses data from the MODIS Terra satellite, with spatial resolution around 250 meters, it is possible to detect only deforestation polygons with an area larger than 25 hectares. INPE reaffirms that not all deforestation bigger than 25 hectares are identified by the system, due to the clouds coverage. However, the lower resolution of the sensors used by DETER is compensated by the daily observation capacity, which makes the system a perfect tool to quickly inform the supervisory boards of new deforestation.

All DETER’s data are public and can be accessed through: www.obt.inpe.br/deter

Source: WebSite of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE)